ACM Queue - System Administration

ACM Queue - System Administration http://queue.acm.org/listing.cfm?item_topic=System Administration&qc_type=topics_list&filter=System Administration&page_title=System Administration&order=desc What do Trains, Horses, and Home Internet Installation have in Common?: Avoid changes mid-process http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3639447 System Administration 2024年1月10日 16:27:10 GMT Thomas A. Limoncelli 3639447 Master of Tickets: Valuing the quality, not the quantity, of work http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3383461 Many silly metrics have been created to measure work, including the rate at which tickets are closed, the number of lines of code a programmer writes in a day, and the number of words an author can compose in an hour. All of these measures have one thing in common: They fail to take into account the quality of the output. If Alice writes 1,000 lines of impossible-to-read, buggy code in a day and Carol writes 100 lines of well-crafted, easy-to-use code in the same time, then who should be rewarded? System Administration 2020年2月12日 14:08:11 GMT George V. Neville-Neil 3383461 The Observer Effect: Finding the balance between zero and maximum http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3084695 The problem is a failure to appreciate just what you are asking a system to do when polling it for information. Modern systems contain thousands of values that can be measured and recorded. Blindly retrieving whatever it is that might be exposed by the system is bad enough, but asking for it with a high-frequency poll is much worse. System Administration 2017年4月25日 16:29:39 GMT George Neville-Neil 3084695 The Small Batches Principle: Reducing waste, encouraging experimentation, and making everyone happy http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2945077 The small batches principle is part of the DevOps methodology. It comes from the lean manufacturing movement, which is often called just-in-time manufacturing. It can be applied to just about any kind of process. It also enables the MVP (minimum viable product) methodology, which involves launching a small version of a service to get early feedback that informs the decisions made later in the project. System Administration 2016年5月24日 15:28:43 GMT Thomas A. Limoncelli 2945077 How Sysadmins Devalue Themselves: And how to track on-call coverage http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2891413 Q: Dear Tom, How can I devalue my work? Lately I've felt like everyone appreciates me, and, in fact, I'm overpaid and underutilized. Could you help me devalue myself at work? A: Dear Reader, Absolutely! I know what a pain it is to lug home those big paychecks. It's so distracting to have people constantly patting you on the back. Ouch! Plus, popularity leads to dates with famous musicians and movie stars. (Just ask someone like Taylor Swift or Leonardo DiCaprio.) Who wants that kind of distraction when there's a perfectly good video game to be played? System Administration 2016年2月08日 16:54:11 GMT Thomas A. Limoncelli 2891413 Advances and Challenges in Log Analysis: Logs contain a wealth of information for help in managing systems. http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2082137 Computer-system logs provide a glimpse into the states of a running system. Instrumentation occasionally generates short messages that are collected in a system-specific log. The content and format of logs can vary widely from one system to another and even among components within a system. A printer driver might generate messages indicating that it had trouble communicating with the printer, while a Web server might record which pages were requested and when. System Administration 2011年12月20日 13:02:02 GMT Adam Oliner, Archana Ganapathi, Wei Xu 2082137 Testable System Administration: Models of indeterminism are changing IT management. http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1937179 The methods of system administration have changed little in the past 20 years. While core IT technologies have improved in a multitude of ways, for many if not most organizations system administration is still based on production-line build logistics (aka provisioning) and reactive incident handling. As we progress into an information age, humans will need to work less like the machines they use and embrace knowledge-based approaches. That means exploiting simple (hands-free) automation that leaves us unencumbered to discover patterns and make decisions. This goal is reachable if IT itself opens up to a core challenge of automation that is long overdue: namely, how to abandon the myth of determinism and expect the unexpected. System Administration 2011年1月31日 15:06:25 GMT Mark Burgess 1937179 System Administration Soft Skills: How can system administrators reduce stress and conflict in the workplace? http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1922541 System administration can be both stressful and rewarding. Stress generally comes from outside factors such as conflict between SAs (system administrators) and their colleagues, a lack of resources, a high-interrupt environment, conflicting priorities, and SAs being held responsible for failures outside their control. What can SAs and their managers do to alleviate the stress? There are some well-known interpersonal and time-management techniques that can help, but these can be forgotten in times of crisis or just through force of habit. The purpose of this article is to restate these maxims and remind readers of these important soft skills, particularly as they apply to SAs. System Administration 2011年1月04日 14:39:17 GMT Christina Lear 1922541 A Plea to Software Vendors from Sysadmins - 10 Do’s and Don’ts: What can software vendors do to make the lives of sysadmins a little easier? http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1921361 A friend of mine is a grease monkey: the kind of auto enthusiast who rebuilds engines for fun on a Saturday night. He explained to me that certain brands of automobiles were designed in ways to make the mechanic's job easier. Others, however, were designed as if the company had a pact with the aspirin industry to make sure there are plenty of mechanics with headaches. He said those car companies hate mechanics. I understood completely because, as a system administrator, I can tell when software vendors hate me. It shows in their products. System Administration 2010年12月22日 12:24:47 GMT Thomas A. Limoncelli 1921361 Collaboration in System Administration: For sysadmins, solving problems usually involves collaborating with others. How can we make it more effective? http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1898149 George was in trouble. A seemingly simple deployment was taking all morning, and there seemed no end in sight. His manager kept coming in to check on his progress, as the customer was anxious to have the deployment done. He was supposed to be leaving for a goodbye lunch for a departing co-worker, adding to the stress. He had called in all kinds of help, including colleagues, an application architect, technical support, and even one of the system developers. He used e-mail, instant messaging, face-to-face contacts, his phone, and even his office mate's phone to communicate with everyone. And George was no novice. He had been working as a Web-hosting administrator for three years, and he had a bachelor's degree in computer science. But it seemed that all the expertise being brought to bear was simply not enough. Why was George in trouble? We'll find out. System Administration 2010年12月06日 19:45:43 GMT Eben M. Haber, Eser Kandogan, Paul Maglio 1898149